Monday, September 1, 2008

Is There Any Purpose In Life??

"Mary Uduru is one of the many Nigerians struggling to live on less than $1 a day, despite the country's vast oil wealth. She works from dawn to dusk cooking and selling food on the roadside in the small central town of Makurdi. Her husband died when she was 26, leaving her to bring up her four children alone. She now cares for three of her grandchildren.

She used to lead a privileged life, as the wife of a local chief. The seventh and youngest wife, she lived on a huge farm and there were many workers around to look after her and her young children. But all that changed when he died in 1983. Despite being the favourite, little provision had been made for her, and she found herself almost destitute, with just a small plot of land in the town and four children to support."

There are 9 photos telling her story of what life is really all about. The vicissitudes of the ups and downs of life. The miseries, more often than happiness that scourge our lives. Mary's experience is one of the many millions that suffer such. The question is: WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

At the end of the day Mary has this to say: “We have so many problems but we can eat.”

4 comments:

Millions are like that in Africa.Why like that?Simple....the rich and powerful governments are hard hearted and cruel...with actions and deeds done for selfish ulterior motives.But it is getting much better..year by year...not because of government help....but due to thousands of powerful...good rich individuals ....out to help..and that makes their government take note and change for the better.Once again...is evil force more powerful than good ones?I don't think so..since entering year 2000.TRUTHS are getting more and more powerful than lies.And it also means.....all will suffer from natural causes from Earth...as we do not take care of it..it will destroy all. Nothing can stop it..when the change reactions starts....rapidly.Signs are all there.Who caused them?You guess it..powerful Nations.

Soldiers go to war .where the victors get free beer and rape girls.While the winning Commander In Chief....gets the treasures..beer and women.War mongers are evil.Defending against invaders are usually...the righteous.But in Malaysia...the defender..UMNO is most evil....so the world is actually...upside down.

CAN WE LEARN SOMETHING FROM THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE ….read on————————————————————————————

What’s the Meaning of ‘Freedom’? …. But don’t ask a politician!

by Rep. Ron Paul

“Man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts”.

- Ronald Reagan

We’ve all heard the words democracy and freedom used countless times, especially in the context of our invasion of Iraq. They are used interchangeably in modern political discourse, yet their true meanings are very different. George Orwell (picture above right) wrote about “meaningless words” that are endlessly repeated in the political arena. Words like “freedom,” “democracy,” and “justice,” Orwell explained, have been abused so long that their original meanings have been eviscerated. In Orwell’s view, political words are “often used in a consciously dishonest way.” Without precise meanings behind words, politicians and elites can obscure reality and condition people to reflexively associate certain words with positive or negative perceptions. In other words, unpleasant facts can be hidden behind purposely meaningless language.

As a result, Americans have been conditioned to accept the word “democracy” as a synonym for freedom, and thus to believe that democracy is unquestionably good. The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this, as evidenced not only by our republican constitutional system, but also by their writings in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere. James Madison cautioned that under a democratic government, “There is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure and protect preexisting rights.

Yet how many Americans know that the word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence, our very founding documents? A truly democratic election in Iraq, without U.S. interference and U.S. puppet candidates, almost certainly would result in the creation of a Shi’ite theocracy. Shi’ite majority rule in Iraq might well mean the complete political, economic, and social subjugation of the minority Kurd and Sunni Arab populations. Such an outcome would be democratic, but would it be free? Would the Kurds and Sunnis consider themselves free? The administration talks about democracy in Iraq, but is it prepared to accept a democratically elected Iraqi government no matter what its attitude toward the U.S. occupation? Hardly. For all our talk about freedom and democracy, the truth is we have no idea whether Iraqis will be free in the future.

They’re certainly not free while a foreign army occupies their country. The real test is not whether Iraq adopts a democratic, pro-Western government, but rather whether ordinary Iraqis can lead their personal, religious, social, and business lives without interference from government. Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. States, not the federal government, were charged with protecting individuals against criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a government was created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and property of its citizens.

Any government coercion beyond that necessary to secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of Rights and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This reflected the founders’ belief that democratic government could be as tyrannical as any King. Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less. The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth.

To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive?and thus incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government. The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought about through military strength.

Like the left, modern conservatives favor an all-powerful central state? but for militarism, corporatism, and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of yesteryear, today’s Republicans are eager to expand government spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene militarily around the world. The last tenuous links between conservatives and support for smaller government have been severed. “Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active government, has transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity. Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in politics. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog and attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us.

We must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate term for both: statists. Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word.